Last night was a *long* night. The 9 month old wasn’t feeling well and waking up crying and crying and crying. Multiple times. Around 11:30, the 2yo woke up crying while I was trying to calm the crying 9 month old. Oh. My. Word. I finally woke my husband to get the 2yo and between us we got them calmed down and back asleep. It wasn’t until after 1:30am that the 9 month old slept for any length of time and in his own bed. Needless to say….I’m a wee bit tired today. And kinda foggy brained.
But even when I’m tired I want to be character focused.
I was pleasantly surprised to find myself using a calm voice and consistently taking my kids back to Christ this morning. And so thankful to the LORD for enabling me to do this. Usually when I'm this tired and foggy brained, I don't deal well with things or I don't take them back to Christ. I just deal with the incident and that's that.
A *lot* of character conversations happened this morning. A lot. The kids were all very receptive to what I had to say, but more importantly to what GOD had to say.
There was a case of anger and not communicating. Another case of stealing. One of being angry and respectful of others belongings. A child didn’t show self-control and was angry.
I used a very calm voice, asked questions to ensure I had all the facts, and then took them straight to Christ and His Word. I would speak to one child at a time, with the other involved party listening in. I would instruct them in verses that talked about the character quality they were lacking. In almost every case I would remind them of I Corinthians 13:7 that says that love "believes all things", or to phrase it another way, “love thinks the best”.
In one case a child had picked up an item that was on the floor and the child it belonged to saw their item in another's hands and assumed they had stolen it. Come to find out, we had a couple of those items that are very similar looking and it wasn’t theirs. I instructed the child who was thinking the worst, that they should have thought the best. They should have gone to look in the spot where their item was supposed to be and if theirs was missing to ask questions (where did you find that? Can I see that for a second?) before assuming the worst - that their sibling had stolen from them.
It takes a lot of mental energy to train your kids in character. And often a lot of time. Time I could be doing dishes, cleaning, working on laundry, working on the meal that is supposed to be on the table in 15 minutes……and while those are important tasks and need to be done, in light of eternal things, they aren’t important in that moment.
Take time to talk to your kids.
Take time to train your kids in godly character qualities.
Take time to always take your kids back to Christ and His Word.
You won’t regret it. I promise. 💕
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